Repub­li­can can­di­date is do­ing his best to over­take Hillary Clin­ton in the polls

Don­ald Trump plunged into his fi­nal-week sprint to Elec­tion Day de­cid­edly on his terms: un­leash­ing a new at­tack against Demo­crat Hillary Clin­ton in Michi­gan, a state that hasn’t favoured a Repub­li­can for pres­i­dent in nearly three decades. His mes­sage was wel­comed by sup­port­ers, but his lo­ca­tion frus­trated anx­ious Repub­li­cans who fear their nom­i­nee is rid­ing his un­ortho­dox po­lit­i­cal play­book too long – even as Clin­ton’s de­vel­op­ing email prob­lems of­fer new po­lit­i­cal op­por­tu­nity. “Her elec­tion would mire our gov­ern­ment and our coun­try in a con­sti­tu­tional cri­sis that we can­not af­ford,” Trump de­clared in Grand Rapids, point­ing to the FBI’s re­newed ex­am­i­na­tion of Clin­ton’s email prac­tices as ev­i­dence the for­mer sec­re­tary of state might face a crim­i­nal trial as pres­i­dent. Polls show a tight­en­ing race – the lat­est New York Times poll had Clin­ton lead­ing with 45.8 per cent and Trump on 41.3 per cent. But with more than 23 mil­lion bal­lots al­ready cast through early vot­ing, it’s un­clear whether Trump has the time or ca­pac­ity to dra­mat­i­cally im­prove his stand­ing over the next week in states like Michi­gan, where few in ei­ther party ex­pect a Repub­li­can vic­tory on No­vem­ber 8. Clin­ton, de­fend­ing her­self from the new FBI ex­am­i­na­tion, on Mon­day fo­cused on bat­tle­ground Ohio, a state Trump’s team con­cedes he must win. “There is no case here,” Clin­ton in­sisted. “Most peo­ple have de­cided a long time ago what they think about all this.”

CAM­PAIGN TRAIL With just a week un­til the big day Clin­ton and her al­lies in a dozen bat­tle­ground states have more than 4,800 peo­ple knock­ing on doors, mak­ing phone calls and work­ing to sup­port her candi- dacy. Her num­bers, as re­ported in cam­paign fil­ings, tripled those of Trump and the na­tional and state Repub­li­can par­ties.

Mean­while, New York busi­ness­man Trump is de­vot­ing his most valu­able re­source – his time – to states where polls sug­gest he’s trail­ing Clin­ton by sig­nif­i­cant mar­gins.

Trump’s cam­paign hopes that frus­trated work­ing-class vot­ers across the Mid­west will tip states like Michi­gan or Wis­con­sin his way, es­pe­cially if he ben­e­fits from re­duced en­thu­si­asm for Clin­ton in African-Amer­i­can strongholds like Detroit and Mil­wau­kee.